Top of font cut off

charmina · **Joined:** Jan 01, 2018 **Posts:** 2

GIMP Version: 2.8.14
Operating System: Windows
GIMP Experience: Intermediate Level

Hi all,

Can anyone please explain to me why this particular font just isn't working properly? The top of letters are being chopped off, despite it looking whole in Text Editor. I've tried adjusting everything I can think of with no luck. This font works perfectly fine in Illustrator - but I use Gimp more than AI and would really like to get it working properly!

TIA!

ofnuts · **Joined:** Oct 25, 2010 **Posts:** 4812

If you do Layer>Text to path, is the path complete or is it also missing the top? And does it extends beyond the boundaries of the text layer?

Graechan · **Posted:** Tue Jan 02, 2018 2:25 am **(#3)**

A quick fix could be to select Image→Fit Canvas to Layers

charmina · **Joined:** Jan 01, 2018 **Posts:** 2

It's within the boundaries of the text layer. Fit canvas to layers didn't seem to help. The path is complete though, which at least gives me a (albeit annoying) workaround for now

Thanks graechan & ofnuts

AnMal · **Posted:** Tue Jan 02, 2018 3:21 pm **(#5)**

charmina: if you're okay with the paths workaround maybe you won't want to mess around more with this font, but you might play with the baseline and kerning and see if the font displays properly with some tweaks. It's a bit surprising that the path is okay though, it shouldn't be if it was a kerning issue.

RJKD · **Posted:** Tue Jan 02, 2018 3:42 pm **(#6)**

Glad you have a solution.
I tried every way I could with this font (with and without using text editor) in all my attempts the top was cut off.

Wallace · **Posted:** Tue Jan 02, 2018 9:21 pm **(#7)**

This font may have been created with a kerning issue.
In my image below.
All the letters which extend above a given point are cut off.
I've tested both the .ttf and .otf font file types in GIMP.
Both font file types, exhibit this same issue, with the same letters.

The red line in the image above.
Shows the same cutoff point for all letters,
within a given point.

Note,
that this font is not cut off,
when used in MS Paint.

Graechan · **Posted:** Tue Jan 02, 2018 11:03 pm **(#8)**

This text was created with the 'free type' plugin with kerning selected

Wallace · **Posted:** Tue Jan 02, 2018 11:30 pm **(#9)**

Graechan wrote:

[ Image ]
This text was created with the 'free type' plugin with kerning selected

That's interesting.

***

Here's this font in GIMP,
with Italic selected.
From within GIMP's onscreen text editor.
Look no cut off parts.

I also tried locking the alpha channel of the text layer and painting over it.
To try and fill in the cut off parts.
This didn't work.

Graechan · **Posted:** Wed Jan 03, 2018 12:53 am **(#10)**

The fonts Magnolia Lite↓

and Magnolia Italic↓ from the same author are OK

Skinnyhouse · **Posted:** Wed Jan 03, 2018 7:52 am **(#11)**

charmina I think you're just unlucky with your font choice in Gimp.

A quick inspection of the font in Font Forge shows that the author has placed the topmost control points of the offending letters outside Gimp's text rendering comfort zone.

The font was designed with the standard Em size (for ttf fonts) of 1000 and within that the ascender height was set to 750 (think capital letter height) - the default size for many fonts. The y co-ordinate of the top-most control point for the capital letter M has been set to 1209 by the author - a fair way above that 750 value.

Gimp does allow for quite a bit of wiggle room to render fonts - other programs may allow more space - but not quite enough for this particular font. The attchments below show you that Gimp is almost (but sadly not) there.

Your options as far as I can tell: Choose another font; email the author for a new version; try another graphics application and import it into Gimp...

Font Forge view of capital M control points:

Attachment:

Magnolia_font_font_info_1.jpg [ 189.22 KiB | Viewed 3004 times ]

Same view with capital M added so you can see where Gimp's rendering almost makes it.

Attachment:

Magnolia_font_font_info_2.jpg [ 170.97 KiB | Viewed 3004 times ]

rich2005 · **Joined:** Mar 04, 2011 **Posts:** 2606

Got to the same place in fontforge yesterday , but apart from scaling it could end up a lot of work and I am no expert when it comes to fontforge. This is it scaled 65%

The original (top) Magnolia Sky @ 150 pix
becomes (middle) gimp-magnolia-sky @ 150 pix note how the kerning is broken. The letters do not join together.
A bit of adjustment in Gimp (bottom) 200 pix and kerning set to -5 or -6. You could improve it a little more by selecting and adjusting individual characters, depends how keen you are.

Attachment:

font.jpg [ 66.03 KiB | Viewed 3000 times ]

I go with skinnyhouse, email the font author.

Font (zipped) attached as an example. shows up as gimp-magnolia.

Skinnyhouse · **Posted:** Wed Jan 03, 2018 3:42 pm **(#13)**

Agree with Rich - more than a little work to do to make it pleasing in Gimp - and it belongs to the author. A lot of warnings appeared when loading it into fontforge so not surprised that the kerning fell apart when transforming it.

MareroQ · **Posted:** Wed Jan 03, 2018 5:22 pm **(#14)**

Thanks for the valuable information from Skinnyhouse and Rich2005.
But why is not this problem using Freetype or Tategaki-1.2.1 (http://reddog.s35.xrea.com/wiki/GIMP%E3%81%A7%E7%B8%A6%E6%9B%B8%E3%81%8D.html)?

Graechan · **Posted:** Thu Jan 04, 2018 2:10 am **(#15)**

'Gimp-Magnolia-Sky' seems to work OK in scripts

This is from 'Black Gold' :bigthup

Issabella · **Posted:** Thu Jan 04, 2018 2:19 am **(#16)**

The font looks great in Black Gold. Good! thanks Graechan.

Skinnyhouse · **Posted:** Sun Sep 09, 2018 8:28 am **(#17)**

Know your limits!
Or at least in this case know the upper margin limit.

Thought I'd revisit with my Layers_From_Fonts filter update.

No such luck - nearly there is not good enough - shucks!

Attachment:

Mag_Sky_Failed_again.png [ 17.22 KiB | Viewed 2794 times ]